


crazy

by picht



Series: schizo verse [2]
Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Delusions, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Paranoia, Paranoid Delusions, Psychosis, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Stream of Consciousness, Thought Spirals, schizoaffective brian, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picht/pseuds/picht
Summary: all alone in a crowded roomnothing's real,  nothing's goodWhen Brian looks at Laura and all he feels is fear; that’s when he knows something’s wrong for real....(He’s only asking to catch you off guard, the voice in Brian’s head says, and Brian thinks back,shut the fuck up and go to sleep I’m trying to write a rock opera, and then he breathes and lists all of the objects in the room and their purposes, and it helps. When the PCA holds out a hand and Brian manages to shake it without having an episode, he starts crying.)//ao3 user picht coming at y'all with yet another vent fic, but this time make it mental illness
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Series: schizo verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1394269
Comments: 7
Kudos: 79





	crazy

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gonna try to keep this kind of short uh. i wrote this in like 20 mins and it's probably really really bad but i got out of the hospital like 4 days ago after being hospitalized for first episode psychosis and discovered that the neuro symptoms i had previously accredited to fnd were really symptoms of schizoaffective disorder and since i had written a fic this summer where brian has fnd, i felt compelled to write a second one where actually no hes just fucking crazy.
> 
> all experiences based off my own; this is very much a vent fic. no aspect of dealing with psychosis/schizophrenia/hospitalization is misconstrued; it is all based off my personal experiences. don't call me ableist for writing this or i'll eat your fingers.
> 
> content warnings:  
> 1) mention of hospitalization with a few scenes set in the hospital  
> 2) extreme paranoid thoughts/psychosis/delusions/hallucinations portrayed explicitly and described openly in a manner that may put some people who are susceptible to such things at risk of experiencing them if they read this? idk. please be safe
> 
> title and lyrics from summary are from crazy by the homeless gospel choir. i made everyone in my unit listen to that song during music therapy it was great. finally, this is like. very poorly written like i said dflkgjdflkj. its mostly for me, but if anyone else enjoys it that would obviously be very cool. also thanks to michael for encouraging me to write this when i wasn't sure if it would be a good idea or not

When Brian looks at Laura and all he feels is fear; that’s when he knows something’s wrong for real.

It had been little things, at first: his neuro symptoms had started getting worse, he’d noticed himself feeling more and more mistrustful of his loved ones. Brian had always been a paranoid person--had blamed it on the nerdy gender non conforming bi dude anxiety--but the paranoia had been getting so much worse over the past few weeks. He’d noticed himself stop trusting people, start to isolate himself, and even though some part of him was aware that it was just anxiety and he needed to chill, telling himself as much didn’t help at all.

Brian recognized himself isolating further and further. He stopped speaking to people unless they spoke first, and when he was prompted to talk to others it always caused such a feeling of fear ( _don’t hurt me don’t hurt me i don’t know who you are please don’t hurt me don’t_ ). He felt like an imposter in his own life. He felt like everyone else was an imposter, and there was some game at play that only he wasn’t aware of. And then one night, leaving his room to get some Naproxen for the massive headache that he’d been having more and more, running into Laura, and not being able to stop thinking about how it was unsafe to be in the apartment with her because he knew she was going to kill him--that had been the breaking point for the dam that is Brian’s psyche.

“Hey, Bri,” Laura had said, and Brian had nodded without words, trying so hard not to make her aware of his discomfort because he had known that if she Knew that he Knew that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be she wouldn’t let him live--

_Not where I’m supposed to be_ , he’d thought, initially incredulously because since when is he literally fucking insane? But then he’d thought it again, and then again, _not where I’m supposed to be, not where I’m supposed to be_ , and he’d only come out of that thought spiral when Laura had cleared her throat to ask, “You good, bro?”

Brian had tensed up, nodded, but he couldn’t speak because if he did then she would Know. But he couldn’t turn his back to her either, and he couldn’t make her suspicious, so instead of continuing on toward the kitchen he had sat down in the recliner in the corner and pulled out his phone, pretending to play on it while making sure to keep an eye on her till she’d left the room.

Brian felt unsafe in the walls. Brian feels unsafe in the walls. The television is--

“Ooookay, well, I’m gonna go get high by myself and listen to Florence. Catch you on the flipside,” Laura ( _where is Laura, where is Laura_ ) says ( _no she doesn’t that’s not Laura that’s_ ), and leaves the room.

Once she’s gone, Brian feels a little calmer, which doesn’t make sense because it had just been _Laura_ ( _but had it?_ ). He gets up and stumbles into the kitchen for the Naproxen. His head hurts so fucking bad.

Brian needs to talk to Pat. Brian can’t talk to Pat. The lights and the tvs and the computers are watching and Brian needs to talk to Pat but Brian can’t talk to Pat because the lights and the tvs and the computers and the

( _It’s okay, Brian, you’re safe here, Pat says, and Brian realizes that he’s sobbing curled up in the corner of Pat’s closet, and when did that happen?_ )

“It’s okay, Brian, you’re safe here,” Pat says. Brian doesn’t feel safe here, but Brian doesn’t feel safe anywhere, and Pat feels less dangerous than anyone else in Brian’s life right now. Why is he sitting curled up in the closet?

“Am I in your closet?” Brian asks. Brian doesn’t feel safe here but Brian doesn’t feel safe anywhere and Pat feels less dangerous than anyone else in Brian’s life right now why is he sitting curled up in the closet Brian doesn’t.

“Yeah, baby,” Pat says. He’s sitting cross legged in his bedroom, several feet in front of Brian. “You had another really bad episode. That’s the worst one I’ve seen so far.”

“Oh,” Brian says, and thinks, oh. He doesn’t remember. “I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, you were yelling about, um,” Pat stops himself, having realized most likely at this point that bringing it back to the front of Brian’s mind is likely to cause Brian to dive back into it again, but Brian remembers enough to know that, yeah, fuck, he’d been fucking yelling about monsters in the lights and the windows and the air vents and the walls and the tvs and the phones, hadn’t he. He’d been screaming and crying and begging Pat not to touch him or hurt him, hadn’t he.

“Pat, there’s something really wrong with me.” Brian is scared. It’s a different type of scared than he feels when he’s having an episode, less of a visceral fight or flight terror and more of a deep seated dread.

“Yeah, Bri, um.” Pat rubs his palm over his face roughly. He looks so stressed. _It’s your fault. He hates you. He wants to kill you._ “Do you remember what we talked about? Have you considered it further?”

Brian has to fight his brain to keep from going back under. His head hurts so bad, it’s fuzzy, he feels like he can’t think or speak or move. But he remembers Pat telling him after the fifth night of him sleeping on Pat’s couch ( _because he can’t sleep in Pat’s bed because he_ ) and venting about how scared he’s been and how he’s losing his fucking mind that Pat had a family member with Schizophrenia. That the onset of Brian’s neurological/cognitive/motor issues, followed by the onset of… of fucking, _psychosis_ a year and a half later--that it. It made some sort of sense.

That the best treatment for first episode psychosis is hospitalization.

“I don’t wanna go to the hospital…” Brian whispers. He’s scared to argue because he doesn’t want Pat to hurt him, but also, he really, really doesn’t want to go to the hospital. He has a job, he has a life. “I have a job. I have a life.”

“Bri, you’ve… you’ve missed work every day for the past week and a half because you can’t handle being in the office with all of the lights and screens and windows. I’ve already explained to Tara--” _he told Tara she’s going to kill you he told her and she’s mad and now she’s going to kill you they’re both going to kill you and laugh about it when you’re dead he’s cheating on you with her they’re going to kill you they want to kill you you’re going to die you are going to be murdered the monsters are going to get you they’re coming they’re in the walls you can hear them in the walls you can_ \-- “And you haven’t done much of anything, really, except sit in my apartment in the corner and play Crossy Road for that amount of time, either. You can’t… live like this, Brian. I don’t want you to. And when you’re not in this mindset, you don’t want to either.”

“You don’t fucking know what I want,” Brian says, slamming his palm on the wall, and then whimpers at the bang because he doesn’t want to alert the monsters. Pat just looks concerned. “I. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I don’t know what to do I’m so scared oh god Pat I’m so fucking scared I don’t know what to do I can’t live like this I can’t I’m they’re here they’re coming I’m gonna oh my god oh my god oh my--”

So Brian goes to the hospital.

He’s kicking and screaming and crying during intake, begging them not to touch him. It takes an hour to get his vitals. If he were in his right mind, he’d be glad no one in his life is having to see him like this.

The first two nights, Pat and Simone visit him because he can’t see Laura and Jonah yet. He spends most of the visitations begging them to let him leave because he’s not safe. “They’re trying to hurt me,” he says. Pat asks what evidence he has, and he gets angry. Simone just looks sad.

The third night when Pat and Simone visit, there’s a change. “I, uh, realized,” he says. He feels It creeping up on him, seeping into his eyeballs. He breathes and starts listing all of the objects in the room and their functions. “That, uh. I’ve been, you know. Having a psychotic episode for the past god knows how long, with no memory or awareness of the delusions. I got a schizoaffective diagnosis today? They said the symptoms that we thought were, like, FND, were actually part of the schizoaffective and I was experiencing the prodromal stage. I think the anti-psychotic is helping. It’s still there, but I can feel myself coming out of it more, and having an easier time keeping control.” Pat and Simone both start crying, and when Brian apologizes to them, all they can do is laugh and hug him. Simone gives him a noogie. Pat kisses his cheek. He can almost pretend, for a moment, that things are normal.

_They’re going to leave you here they don’t love you they’re experimenting on you here they’re going to kill you they’re going to hurt you they hate you they want you to die they know you’re a freak they know you’re not like them they’re going to kill you they’re going to kill you they’re going to--_

Brian gets out of bed, careful not to wake his roommate, and goes into the larger part of the unit to ask the med nurse for a Vistaril. When he settles down with his journal in one of the chairs in the unit and a PCA checks on him, he can honestly say that he’s doing better than he has been in weeks. _He’s only asking to catch you off guard_ , the voice in Brian’s head says, and Brian thinks back, _shut the fuck up and go to sleep I’m trying to write a rock opera_ , and then he breathes and lists all of the objects in the room and their purposes, and it helps. When the PCA holds out a hand and Brian manages to shake it without having an episode, he starts crying.

When Brian is discharged, Pat, Laura, and Jonah are all there to pick him up. He hugs Laura and Jonah and feels safe around them for the first time in weeks. When he voices this, they all start crying.

He’s still planning on staying at Pat’s for a bit to ease himself back into things; the delusions, the paranoia, the voices, etc. They’re all still there. They’ll always be there. They’re just more manageable. He doesn’t wanna risk making things bad again by pushing himself to do anything he’s not sure he’s comfortable with.

“I’m proud of you,” Pat says into Brian’s hair as they hug. Brian can hug Pat now, without fearing for his own life. He’s proud of _himself_. He hugs Pat tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> well thats it i spose. if you liked it lmk! feel free to come hang with me on tumblr @departedpoison


End file.
